Modifying wheat beer kit

[jevers]

For my second brew I bought NBs American Wheat Beer kit, which contains:

6 lbs wheat lme
1 oz Willamette (60)
1 oz Cascade (15)

Last week I got a jar of local honey (approx. 1.5 lbs) from a neighbor and thought it would be good to put in the wheat beer. So my question is, would you reccomend using the full amount? If not, how much (if at all)? And at what point in the boil should I add it?

 

[JLem]

I would not use the whole amount - that would make up 20% of your fermentables. I would use only 0.5-0.75 lbs (i.e. 5-10%). Add it late in the process - right at flameout....or maybe even post-fermentation. Boiling and the fermentation process will remove a lot of the honey flavors/aromas. The later in the process you use it, the more of those you will retain.

 

[noggins]

I've used 1.5 lbs with this recipe: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f70/honeywit-112991/#post1370080 with good results. Added at flameout and just let it simmer for 10 minutes. It boosted the abv by a bit, and added just a hint of the honey aroma and flavor.

 

[jevers]

Thanks for the help, I'll weigh it and add 0.5 to 0.75 lbs at flameout.

 

[JLem]

Thanks for the help, I'll weigh it and add 0.5 to 0.75 lbs at flameout.

Don't forget too that you can always add more later if you find you don't get enough honey flavor/aroma. You can even add it at bottling, though that becomes a little tricky trying to figure out how much to use for proper carbonation.

 

[pericles]

Honey doesn't impart a significant flavor to the finished beer if it's added before active fermentation ceases. The yeast will ferment all the sugar off, and there's not much honey "flavor" besides sweetness.

The beers that you've tasted that have a lot of honey "flavor" add the honey AFTER fermentation has ended and the yeast has been filtered out. Then the beer is force carbonated, so no additional yeast is present to consume the honey. If you bottle-carbonate a beer that you've added honey to after fermentation has ended, the yeast will activate in the bottles, consume the honey, and generate enough CO2 to burst the bottle. (That's bad.)

If what you want is an alcohol boost without affecting flavor, you could get the same result with corn sugar, and save some money. If you really want the honey flavor, then adding honey to the fermentation probably isn't going to be helpful. Instead, add a steeping grain that will leave honey-like nonfermentable sugars in your beer, like a gambrinus-honey malt.

Another alternative is to dissolve a teaspoon of honey into your finished beer when you pour it into a glass. That sounded crazy to me when Jamil first suggested it, but even just doing it once really underscores the difference between the taste of honey pre- and post-fermentation.